


Taking Stock

by Still_and_Clear



Series: In the Basin [6]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 16:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1947981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_and_Clear/pseuds/Still_and_Clear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frederick returns home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Stock

**Author's Note:**

> Surprised and grateful to see that people are reading this. Thanks for taking the time. :)
> 
> I'm British, and do apologise if any British words are sneaking in where they oughtn't. I'm happy to change to a more appropriate American alternative if you care to point it out. I've already spent time puzzling over jumpers, sweaters, and cardigans.

Frederick stood in front of the open wardrobe, head tilted and lips pursed in thought. All the Hannibal-inspired clothing would have to go. He felt a prickle of shame at his artless attempts at emulation. What a _gift_ he must have been to him. The very jacket he had been wearing on the day Hannibal framed him so utterly had been a virtual replica of one of Hannibal’s own suits. Still, he could at least remedy that now. He snatched items from the rack and shelves, tossing them on the floor behind him. He had, with his taste for the dramatic, considered a bonfire, but residual tiredness from his stay in hospital had won the day, and he hoped the customers at the Goodwill had a taste for slightly outre checked jackets.

After putting the clothes in a trash bag, tying the knot with a flourish and no small sense of satisfaction, he trudged back downstairs with it, leaving it by the front door. Closing the door behind him, he leaned against it, gazing down the hall. They had all been surprised by his decision to return to this house, he reflected smugly. He had refused to move, just as he had refused the grey standard-issue cane his physical therapist had offered, and just as he had refused extended leave and a change of role after the Gideon incident.

Still, though. Making it through the front door was one thing, but the guest room had been another matter entirely. He had forced himself down there soon after he had returned home – that very afternoon, in fact – but had found his legs stiffening with fear as he reached the foot of the stairs, and had retched helplessly outside the guest room door as he remembered what had been inside. He had been sweating by the time he had manage to stumble back up the stairs, dropping gratefully on to the sofa and letting his head tip back to rest against the cushions as he loosened his collar.

Breathing deep and slow to slow his hammering heart, he found himself wondering at Hannibal’s seemingly boundless cruelty. Gutting that agent, for example, in a mockery of his own evisceration, and propping him on the kitchen counter for Frederick to find had fit no model of psychopathy that he could recall. Frederick remembered Hannibal’s praise of his recovery, and wondered if his apparent resilience had somehow _annoyed_ Hannibal, inspiring the strangely spiteful display. He had, Frederick had belatedly realised, enjoyed preying on his weaknesses: sending him impossible patients to undermine his professional confidence, carefully selecting – like the connoisseur he undoubtedly was – the lonely, the thwarted, and the unloved in a bid to rub salt in Frederick’s all-too-visible wounds. In a truly magnificent display of callousness, he would then commiserate with Frederick over dinner, listening to his seething frustration and barely concealed pain with a patient smile and a measured sip of his wine, before deftly offering elegantly phrased support and consolation – revelling, no doubt, in his power to both wound and heal.

His breathing slowly returning to normal and his limbs feeling like lead now, after the sudden burst of panic, he wondered whether he might decide to share that last insight with Freddie in his hypothetical interview. Her hospital visits had continued until he had been discharged, confusing him as much as they pleased him. He had asked himself, at first – in a moment of honesty - whether he was simply lonely enough that he was pleased to see _anyone_ , recalling the aching, silent hours in his hospital bed after Gideon’s surgery. However, a visit from Jack Crawford had put paid to that theory, leaving him flushed and trembling with anger and righteous indignation. Freddie had arrived soon after Jack had left, and had let him rant for the best part of twenty minutes, occasionally interjecting with her own unflattering assessments of Jack Crawford’s professional judgment, and by the time they had both finally run out of invective he had felt oddly vindicated.

His hand crept over to his phone and found her last text, asking if they could continue to meet to discuss his article, now that he was out of hospital, and wondering if he would perhaps like to try a quiet vegetarian place she knew – neutral ground, as it were? He stroked his finger lightly across his bottom lip, considering.


End file.
